Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider
registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today.

Australia's metadata laws went into effect today. The Abbott government bill received bipartisan support back in March when, with the support of the ALP, the bill passed the Senate by 43 votes to 16. (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-32061421).

However, it is being reported that many telecommunications companies are not ready for the task.

Everyone in the industry knew it was a total shambles from the start. Including, I imagine, the then Telecommunications Minister now PM. Not only are the Telcos not ready for the task, they don't ever want to be ready for the task. It's a complete loser for them. They have to afford heaps of expensive technology to start with which must be paid for by the customers. It is a complete turn-off for their customers so their income base reduces. And even semi-smart customers will bypass the filters easily, which makes the whole thing an exercise in absolutely futility. That is, yet another example of the Abbott idiocy. And it only cost us another few hundred million dollars.

__________________...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015

Everyone in the industry knew it was a total shambles from the start. Including, I imagine, the then Telecommunications Minister now PM. Not only are the Telcos not ready for the task, they don't ever want to be ready for the task. It's a complete loser for them. They have to afford heaps of expensive technology to start with which must be paid for by the customers. It is a complete turn-off for their customers so their income base reduces. And even semi-smart customers will bypass the filters easily, which makes the whole thing an exercise in absolutely futility. That is, yet another example of the Abbott idiocy. And it only cost us another few hundred million dollars.

I could foretell all this and I am but bottom feeding minion in the tech industry.

How could the geniuses in Govt not get it.

__________________Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity.
Everything is possible, but not everything is probable.
For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes

The governments welfare debit card bill has passed the Senate with the support of the ALP. The final vote was 37-10. This clears the way for a trial of the card in three sites, including Ceduna in South Australia from early next year.

Quote:

Welfare recipients will have access to only 20% of their funds through their normal bank account, including cash withdrawals.

The remaining 80% of payments will be available only via the special Visa Debit card. People will be unable to spend the restricted portions of their payments on alcohol products or gambling services or withdraw those amounts as cash.

I could foretell all this and I am but bottom feeding minion in the tech industry.

How could the geniuses in Govt not get it.

Ditto. And ditto.

I guess the answer is they COULD see it but were over-ruled by some tunnel-vision, bombastic and belligerent arse in the PM's office.

__________________...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015

When it comes to making the public answerable to the government, both major parties back each other absolutely.

No, this one is down to the LNP alone, if not specific people in that area with warped ideological agendas and party-political backhanders.

Labor, for all their sins before 2013, were at least looking at a world-class NBN and resisted alternatives to metadata mining for "terrorist searches". Alas, they caved after that - very poor decision.

__________________...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015

No, this one is down to the LNP alone, if not specific people in that area with warped ideological agendas and party-political backhanders.

Nonsense. Meta data laws were Julia Gillard's idea. Malcolm Turnbull might have spoken against them at the time but from the moment the idea was born, there was never any chance that Australia wouldn't have internet surveillance laws.

__________________"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975

Who is the ex-PM that Heffernan has accused of being a suspected paedophile?

__________________Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity.
Everything is possible, but not everything is probable.
For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes

Who is the ex-PM that Heffernan has accused of being a suspected paedophile?

I assume it is going to be Billy McMahon. There are unsubstantiated internet claim that Billy McMahon was gay. I have no opinion on that."It was common knowledge to many in political and social circles that the Liberal politician William McMahon was gay and that for many years he had shared a waterside Sydney home with his long term male partner."http://www.culturedviews.com/lady-so...04/03/view.htm

It is my understanding that Billy McMahon had some sexual immaturity issues and sought treatment back then, but never heard anything about him being a paedophile. ("boy lover in the 80's") I don't know what the sexual immaturity issues actually were, as I was only a kid when I overheard the discussion back then between senior psychiatrists.

__________________"Here we go again.... semantic and syntactic chicanery and sophistic sleight of tongue and pen.... the bedazzling magic of appearing to be saying something when in fact all that is happening is diverting attention from the attempts at shoving god through the trapdoor of illogic and wishful thinking." - Leumas

I assume it is going to be Billy McMahon. There are unsubstantiated internet claim that Billy McMahon was gay. I have no opinion on that."It was common knowledge to many in political and social circles that the Liberal politician William McMahon was gay and that for many years he had shared a waterside Sydney home with his long term male partner."http://www.culturedviews.com/lady-so...04/03/view.htm

It is my understanding that Billy McMahon had some sexual immaturity issues and sought treatment back then, but never heard anything about him being a paedophile. ("boy lover in the 80's") I don't know what the sexual immaturity issues actually were, as I was only a kid when I overheard the discussion back then between senior psychiatrists.

It would certainly be a dead PM, and McMahon would be my bet. Although Gorton had problems with a certain part of his anatomy.......

__________________A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

I assume it is going to be Billy McMahon. There are unsubstantiated internet claim that Billy McMahon was gay. I have no opinion on that."It was common knowledge to many in political and social circles that the Liberal politician William McMahon was gay and that for many years he had shared a waterside Sydney home with his long term male partner."http://www.culturedviews.com/lady-so...04/03/view.htm

It is my understanding that Billy McMahon had some sexual immaturity issues and sought treatment back then, but never heard anything about him being a paedophile. ("boy lover in the 80's") I don't know what the sexual immaturity issues actually were, as I was only a kid when I overheard the discussion back then between senior psychiatrists.

Just because McMahon was allegedly gay does not mean he is a paedophile. Gay and paedophile does not go hand in hand necessarily.

__________________i loves the little birdies they goes tweet tweet tweet hee hee i loves them they sings to each other tweet twet tweet hee hee i loves them they is so cute i love yje little birdies little birdies in the room when birfies sings ther is no gloom i lobes the little birdies they goess tweet tweet tweet hee hee hee i loves them they sings me to sleep sing me to slrrp now little birdies - The wisdom of Shemp.

Nonsense. Meta data laws were Julia Gillard's idea. Malcolm Turnbull might have spoken against them at the time but from the moment the idea was born, there was never any chance that Australia wouldn't have internet surveillance laws.

They were actually started back in Howard's era, about 2005 IIRC. They didn't work then and they won't work now.

__________________...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015

In any case it does not support your earlier assertion that "this one is down to the LNP alone".

Being an IT tech who had to deal with the technical and legal issues for clients at the time, it does indeed support my assertion. Granted the wording is now so dated as to be ludicrous on that point alone, so it didn't mention "metadata" per se. But they intended to use the powers of the act for the same purposes, i.e. to spy on the population in the name of "security". The current law is a variant of the same, with the same purpose in mind, and with the same bone-headed understanding and drawbacks.

__________________...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015

Being an IT tech who had to deal with the technical and legal issues for clients at the time, it does indeed support my assertion. Granted the wording is now so dated as to be ludicrous on that point alone, so it didn't mention "metadata" per se. But they intended to use the powers of the act for the same purposes, i.e. to spy on the population in the name of "security". The current law is a variant of the same, with the same purpose in mind, and with the same bone-headed understanding and drawbacks.

You keep missing the point that this is not just a "LNP alone" thing. No matter who introduces the legislation, they all receive bi-partisan support. And neither party is interested in how effective these laws are (everybody knows that only honest people will get caught up in the laws). Making laws is all they are interested in.

I don't know if the Cybercrime Act 2001 alone would have been enough to force ISPs to retain meta-data but the Laberals were dead keen to make sure that there was another law about it.

__________________"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975

Malcolm Turnbull has called an end to scare campaigns in politics, while also flagging new borrowing to fund public transport projects.

"What we're trying to achieve is to ensure that Australians who do live today in a high-wage, generous social welfare net economy, will be able to do so in the years ahead and in an environment where wages will be higher and we'll have a bigger tax base and we'll be able to provide for those in need more effectively," he told Fairfax Media.

You keep missing the point that this is not just a "LNP alone" thing. No matter who introduces the legislation, they all receive bi-partisan support. And neither party is interested in how effective these laws are (everybody knows that only honest people will get caught up in the laws). Making laws is all they are interested in.

No, I didn't miss it. I agree. The 2001 law was a sop to senator Brian Harradine, the uptight religious thick-head from Tasmania who held the balance of power at the time. This was all his demands - he wanted to "censor the Internet" from pornography by keeping tabs on who was browsing what IP's. You may recall the peals of horrified laughter from the IT community at the time (proxy software sales skyrocketed), and the resounding groans from local ISP's who had to implement this tracking by law (my clients).

Agreed, the level of cross-house support was very disappointing. But the reason was purely political games - to pay for Harradine's unclogging of the Senate.

My point was that, regardless of the back-story, the current law is hardly the first of this type, nor is it any better. In fact it is likely to be worse.

Quote:

I don't know if the Cybercrime Act 2001 alone would have been enough to force ISPs to retain meta-data but the Liberals were dead keen to make sure that there was another law about it.

No, not metadata per se. It was essentially access logging. The wholesale collection of absolutely useless data that correlated to nothing useful.

Oh yes, the LNP to date have been ultra keen on Big Brother tactics. Of course, like all legislation aimed at curbing or policing the internet, they have used the buzzwords but have shown a woeful lack of technical understanding of how the thing actually works. It has been akin to watching them make traffic laws assuming only horse-and-cart vehicles.

__________________...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015

I don't know if the Cybercrime Act 2001 alone would have been enough to force ISPs to retain meta-data but the Liberals were dead keen to make sure that there was another law about it.

No, not metadata per se. It was essentially access logging. The wholesale collection of absolutely useless data that correlated to nothing useful.

Oh yes, the LNP to date have been ultra keen on Big Brother tactics. Of course, like all legislation aimed at curbing or policing the internet, they have used the buzzwords but have shown a woeful lack of technical understanding of how the thing actually works. It has been akin to watching them make traffic laws assuming only horse-and-cart vehicles.

I notice a slight edit of my post. I used the word LAberal advisedly. They are all the same.

__________________"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975

I notice a slight edit of my post. I used the word LAberal advisedly. They are all the same.

My apologies. I wasn't sure, and thought it may have been a typo.

__________________...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015

On Monday, 34 OECD countries need to agree to pass a deal that would slash pollution, stopping new coal fired power plants being built across the planet and restricting emissions from existing plants. There are just 2 countries refusing to sign...

Which third world countries are these, unwilling to step up to the future and stop polluting `our' planet???
who?

Turns out its South Korea, and AUSTRALIA!!!!!

Yup the libs still (even under the new Turnbull promises to be a `good global citizen on climate change') obviously are still in full denial mode.

`Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead' and to hell with the results to the planet and our descendants

(Turnbull government accused of blocking US, Japan plan to reduce coal, The Age, 10 November 2015)

It looks like the Budget Emergency just got boring so everyone's forgotten about it now.

__________________Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity.
Everything is possible, but not everything is probable.
For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes

Luckily people in NSW don't have to be concerned with deciding what they have to panic about. The Murdoch press tells us what is the Current panic button. At the moment its back to sharks.

It's funny, I actually grew up there- I lived less than 500m from lighthouse beach
It seems that the number of attacks has increased remarkably over the last 5 years or so- when I was growing up there was only 1 attack in my entire childhood, where now it seems to be every 6 months or so at most
warmer water? more sharks?

The $15 billion increase from the Strategic Review of December 2013 to the August 2015 Corporate Plan has nothing to do with FTTP costs and the decisions made by the previous NBN Co management. It has
everything to do with the persistently over-optimistic assumptions about the true costs and timescale for deploying the newly introduced MTM technologies of HFC and FTTN at scale, and the huge impact that this has had on the complexity of the rollout.

Forgot to mention that the detailed analysis that I linked to in my previous post was by former NBN CEO Mike Quigley.
This Turnbull bloke is now wooing Australians with his charm and smarm (is their such a word).

After all of the crowing, it seems like the new Turnbull government isn’t willing to put up with the political cost of this MTM they put themselves into. The AFR reported on Friday that the government is already in talks with large telcos (which we can assume to be Telstra, Optus, TPG and M2) to offload the existing network for as low as $20b, which would constitute a staggering loss and basically re-establish a private monopoly between Telstra, who has been sourced as the likely bulk bidder, and two smaller ISPs – I would likely guess TPG and Optus.

Why isn't Turnbull bought to account on this totally incompetent and dare may I say treasonous (no, maybe a bit strong) treacherous act on the Australian people, their bank balance and digital future. What a disgrace he is. Is the media holding him to account? Not on your sweet bippy, they are too busy greasing up to him and his fork tongued talk of innovation etc, etc.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull appears to have made a statement on national television which may have been factually inaccurate regarding the National Broadband Network, claiming on 7:30 tonight that the cost of remediating Telstra’s copper network was not ten times the amount originally estimated, despite evidence to the contrary.

Tony Abbott has fired a broadside at the plotters who brought him down, defiantly declaring he would have led the Coalition to a victory at the next election.
The comments came in an interview in which he flagged an intention to stay around in Parliament; called on Malcolm Turnbull to spend a week in an Indigenous community each year; advocated a more robust defence of "superior" Western values in the struggle with Islamic extremism; and said his first budget was fine.
And, in a worrying sign for the government, he has also signalled he would not shy away from defending the facts where the record was intentionally falsified by surviving ministers.

__________________Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity.
Everything is possible, but not everything is probable.
For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes